Woolstone Mill: a family garden renewed

I can think of few things more likely to end in tears than taking over your parents’ garden, the one you grew up in, while they move a short hop away – but still near enough to have uncomfortable conversations over the garden wall. However, the Spink family, who have owned Woolstone Mill House near Faringdon in Oxfordshire for more than 40 years, have managed this tricky transition.

As I visited more and more gardens I realised how architecture and plants could be brought togetherJustin Spink

When I visited, Penny Spink, the extremely jolly matriarch of the family, had already given the grandchildren lunch and was splashing about in the pool with her son Justin’s children, among others. She was enjoying it as much they were on a baking hot summer’s day.

Justin Spink, a garden designer, has a special pedigree – or should that be handicap? He’s the great-great-grandson of Thomas Mawson (1861-1933), the man credited with laying the foundations of modern gardening. Mawson’s famous book, The Art and Craft of Garden Making (1912), was reprinted six times within 25 years. It lists garden features that could be added over time, rather like a recipe book. It’s said to have directly inspired Edwin Lutyens and, according to Fred Whitsey, writing in The Garden at Hidcote, Lawrence Johnston “used it as his handbook” at Hidcote Manor. If you want to see Mawson’s Edwardian style for yourself, visit Dyffryn Gardens near Cardiff. It’s the best example I know.

Justin, who was born at Woolstone Mill in 1977, recalls that “his parents spent all their time in the garden”. He loved helping them and, in his early teens, wanted to become an architect. “But as I visited more and more gardens I realised how architecture and plants could be brought together and I thought that I could have the best of both worlds.”

These borders look good now, go on into autumn and give winter presence

Mawson’s genes are obviously alive and well. Justin always begins by laying out the bones of a garden before considering any plants, as Mawson would. “You can’t start a garden without dividing it into different spaces, but the idea of architectural spaces segregated by tall hedges is a bit dated now. It’s partly due to the cost of employing gardeners to maintain it.”

Three influences

Justin has been influenced by three modern designers, each with their own trademark style. “I adore Piet Oudolf’s open perennial meadows,” he says. Consequently his parent’s traditional flower borders, once contained by straight edges on three sides of the rectangular lawn, have been replaced by a meandering path that cuts through prairie-style planting. On the day of my visit, Echinacea pallida swooned a little more than usual in the heat, flattered by a sumptuous dark sedum revelling in the conditions. ‘José Aubergine’ is the designers’ sedum for sure, with the blackest, shiniest stems.

Illustration from Thomas Mawson’s The Art and Craft of Garden Making

Tall stands of Eupatorium maculatum ‘Riesenschirm’ (Joe Pye weed) with buds resembling small purple grapes, burst into thundery clouds at roughly the moment Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ produces hundreds of lemon daises with black-pepper speckled centres. Fountains of golden fluff, from Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’, were being reined in because they’ve swamped the emerging echinaceas. These borders look good now, go on into autumn and give winter presence.

The high hedges, which once enclosed the garden and made it inward-looking, have been lowered to give a much better view

This exuberance is the essence of Oudolf’s natural planting style and Justin’s visits to the walled garden at Scampston Hall, in North Yorkshire, where Oudolf combines structure and prairie, are echoed here, with his parents’ tall yew hedges providing the solid structures. Repositioning his parent’s herbaceous borders with an Oudolf summer prairie was a happy swap because Anthony and Penny have started a new garden at Midsummer House, using their old plants. So everyone’s happy.

Aerial view of the borders at Woolstone Mill Credit:
Andrew Crowley

Arne Maynard is another much admired designer, known for capturing the genius loci, or spirit of the place, and there’s plenty of that at Woolstone Mill House. The Uffington White Horse, a prehistoric creature so streamlined and aquiline that it appears to move in the summer haze, can be seen galloping over the Berkshire Downs. The high hedges, which once enclosed the garden and made it inward-looking, have been lowered to give a much better view over the paddocks and downs. Two carefully positioned topiary “sheep” graze over the haha in a landscape that hasn’t changed for centuries.

“We’re not far from the Ridgeway, said to be the oldest road in Europe,” says Justin. “I love being able to walk up on to the downs from here.”

Thomas Mawson, Justin's great-great-grandfather

Justin is also a fan of the Bannermans, Julian and Isabel. “They turn quite an ordinary site into something special and bring it to life. At Asthall Manor [near Burford in Oxfordshire] they’ve created a diamond-patterned parterre on a slope which I think works really well.”

My father struggled with it for years. And it was a geometrical design, so wrong for a country house

Justin’s designs try to incorporate a touch of fantasy too. He has worked at Euston Hall in Suffolk, laid out by John Evelyn in the late 17th century before being redesigned 100 years later by William Kent, followed by Capability Brown. There’s a lake, a temple and plenty of rolling landscape, but there was no flower garden. Justin introduced a crinkle-crankle yew hedge, to mimic those warm Suffolk walls, that encloses a smaller space separate from the enormous landscape park. Pleached limes, box and yew provide structure which is softened by perennial planting.

Topiary sheep can be seen at Woolstone MillCredit:
Andrew Crowley

Boxing clever

Perhaps the biggest change of all at Woolstone Mill House was the removal of the box parterre. “We had quite bad box blight and I thought that by removing most of it we might be able to get rid of it,” says Justin. He made box balls from the remnants, with “airflow all around”, to help to lessen blight along with a regular application of Buxus Health Mix. “This year we’re clear. Anyway, a parterre is difficult to plant because the soil is so dry inside. My father struggled with it for years. And it was a geometrical design, so wrong for a country house.”

Justin’s son Milo in the mill stream Credit:
Andrew Crowley

The parterre has been replaced by paving and a Bannerman-inspired flagstone table supported on local, bubbly Wicklesham stone that looks like tufa. A revamped summerhouse, for family lunches, was created and an enormous lime tree, which blocked out light, was removed. As you gaze across, the box balls are seen through an airy veil of Verbena bonariensis. Mawson would have approved.

Woolstone Mill House and Midsummer House are open for the National Gardens Scheme tomorrow, 2-5.30pm. Woolstone Mill House, Woolstone, Faringdon, Oxon SN7 7QL (ngs.org.uk).